Say what you will about that highly-ratedDirty Harry film, it ably shows you what the 415 looked like back in 1971, back before it became too expensive for Hollywood to do business in San Francisco. This movie is all 100% genuine on-location San Francisco Bay Area (with the exception of the early bank heist shots).

Now these days, the Golden Gate Park’s Buffalo Paddock doesn’t have more than a half-dozen critters. There’s just a handful left, all female (the Golden Girls let’s call them), so unless Ted Turner comes through with his offer of free bison from one of his ranches in Montana or someplace, we’re going to run out of bison.

But check out how things were back in the day. They were all over. See?

You can barely make out the school bus that psychotic hippie Scorpio just hijacked:

Click to expand

I’ll get some more screen grabs and make some more posts from this movie later on.

In the meantime, check out all the locations – there are lots and lots:

So that might be on your mind the next time you visit this small neighborhood of “minimal bungalows.”

Another thing that might strike you about Westwood Highlands was that it was one of the earliest planned residential communities in the United States, where property owners all would agree to be governed by a commons set of controls and restrictions. At the very least, that means “No Black People” is what that means.

Of course WestHigh wasn’t the only place in the world where this was the case, but it’s sort of funny when “born and raised in San Francisco” NIMBYs start talking about all the rules and customs they honor, they always leave this history out.

Here you go, this is typical. Just substitute “black people” for “in-law apartments” and “white people” for “single-family.”

IN-LAW UNIT AMNESTY“Editor — Mayor Willie Brown’s recent re-election pledge to attempt to legalize the city’s illegal in-law apartments is unjust. Almost a hundred years ago many of San Francisco’s neighborhoods were designed and zoned for single-family use.

Our neighborhood, Westwood Highlands Homeowners, was so designated in 1924. Its status as such is further ensured by the mandatory covenants, controls and restrictions to which all Westwood Highlands residents must agree. Moreover, Proposition M, the voter mandate that states that the diversity of San Francisco’s neighborhoods be preserved, would be violated under this amnesty plan. People who move to single-family areas like ours because they enjoy the safety, convenience, parking and uncongested atmosphere that our single-family tracts have to offer have every right to do so.

In recent years, several city politicians have floated this illegal unit amnesty plan. In every case the plans have been abandoned. Mayor Brown should also give up on this unfair, unwise and unjust idea.